Friday, January 30, 2009

... like a thrust of the hips, Saturday January 31st 2009, Cameron Highlands.

From the present moment, forward and then back again.

On Thursday we ascended from the heat of Penang up into the cool fresh Cameron Highlands which are the highest mountain peaks in the country. The temperature change welcomed but the cold on the first night was surreal, the mist, something to get used to again, just like the closeness of the sun.

The bus ride was a ridiculous thing to endure with strangers. Now when someone passes us in town who was on that bus, there is a connection. Oh yeah, we endured the leaking air conditioner which rained toxic fluid all over our heads. how you doin. smile. Instead of 5 hrs, it took 8, but as Jenna (our new beautiful chinese medicine studying wise woman companion who has been traveling asia for five months, originally from Seattle, ) says: "It happens." More on this lovely being later.

I love staying relaxed in those shitty nauseating travel moments. It feels like I am reversing the mold that my thoughts push to go in. the archetype of the victim or whatever, even about a stupid travel journey... but we dont. we just hang out the door of the bus and welcome the plants and traffic inside.

On the bus I asked for Jenna to magically appear at our new hostel as we met her in Penang on the beach the day before we left and she hinted at heading our way. I also asked for blue skies the next day so that we could see through the clouds at what scurries below us. Both were accumulated along the way way way.

We are staying in a beautiful but very cheap accomodation called Fathers Guesthouse with stunning views and a very good travellers atmosphere. Happy change from the luxuriousness of the room we had in Batu Farringhi. This is more like camping and our room is cabin-esque. The showers are outside under the open sky where you can look up through shampoo bubbled eyes and open your mouth and hum to the expanse above. . The sky is becoming personified in my world lately.

That night sleep was cold and cuddly. The hostel organizes day tours so on Friday we went to the mossy forest and tea plantations. After a bowl of fresh fruit we piled into two jeeps with Kali and Bob our guides for the day. We drove to a the oldest and highest tea plantation in Cameron Highlands (and in the world) and Kali explained the daily process'. Supposedly the higher you go, the better quality the tea. We then ascended to the highest point in the Cameron Highlands to look down from. Then we went on a walk through the a very muddy and moist mossy forest where he said the ground was "empty" because this was the highest oldest rainforest in Malaysia and everything had risen from the sea which is how the moss originated from coral. The temperture could change drastically where within 5 steps of a path under the sun it would be around 27 degrees, then to 20 as you walked into the shade and it drops again to about 17 under really dense mossy trees. Kali showed us many medicinal and poisnous plants such as lemongrass, ginger, cinnamon, and spearmint which we all got to taste right from the branch. Tea tree and manuka trees aswell and the very popular and valuable pitcher plants which catch water and flies that monkeys come and steal. It's like being in a bloody David Attenborough documentary! holla! The whole ecosytem hangs in such a delicate balance depending on them. I cheekily started the trekk right behind Kali at the front of about sixteen folks, feeling as if I was on a one on one trekk, catching him making fake tiger paw tracks to scare everyone else. I fell to the back of the line naturally somehow and as I slipped over moss, swinging forward in one long movement on the path a french woman with a nine month old baby girl was infront of me putting my tensing thighs to shame. The way she carried her over againts her chest over and under the wet branches made me think of how monkey like we are. She mirrored the father monkey carrying his albino yellow chimp, swinging across the vines upside down.

Post walks stomachs growled and we drove to one of the oldest tea factories where the oldest machine there supposedly produces the best teas in the highlands. On the drive there Jenna talked about teaching english in a rural Cambodian village and living with a family, eating meals with them of fresh fish on the fire. She doesn't have a certificate but was handed a black board and chalk. We also talked about accupuncture and I've realized the healer in her and really look forward to her five needle chill out treatment later. I'm inspired by the way she has traveled east asia alone and am extremely grateful for her short presence on our trip. We will put her in touch with Ada, Bart's sister who is practicing massage and chinese medicine as Jenna applies for jobs all over the world.

After the factory tour we waited in a long que of chinese tourists for some delicious teas and cakes. I got banana carrot. We then returned to the hostel and the sun gave the clouds the spotlight on the skystage. They moved upon us with rain and this is the daily cycle here. The rhthym of this weather keeps the strawberry's growing with a balance of the universe's vital essence.

After resting we headed into town with Jenna and a new friend Rodrigo from Uruguay. Everyone is either on their way FROM traveling Aus or on their way TO Aus. (like us.) Rodrigo was on his way back with many stories. We ordered a "steamboat" which is a large serving or various versions of fishballs, chicken, tofu, greens, mushrooms, noodles, clams, eggs etc. You throw it all into a tom yum broth and cook it yourself on a burner. We all told eachother our apples, onions and eucalyptus trees of our trip.

Apples: the best, favourite moment
Onions: the low, hardship experience
Eucalyptus: the inbetween which your still not sure how you feel about it.

Jenna shared another Cambodia apple story about a man she met sitting on a roof top after smoking a spliff with a few travel folk and hearing his life story. How he was born to a mafia father who owned an elephant trekk tour company and at 5 yrs old was sent on foot alone to fetch a new elephant from a nearby country and it took him 1 year to get back with the elephant as he had to sell things on the way to survive. And he was only 25. She said: "That's what I loved most about Cambodia, the people there are so okay with the struggle in their lives. Their like: Okay, yeah, life is shit but that how it is. I love her equanimity and her "it happens" shrug as if nothing could penetrate her relaxed heart. I've decided I'm going to put together a little remember us package in a ziploc bag with some yogi tea, gogi berries, rose quarts, cleansing wipes and a poem thanking her for her good energies.

After dinner the three of us went for a full body massage. There is not too much to say about it other than that she hit spots which I innately knew where sensitive but I was suprised at how tender they were to someone else's touch, mostly on my front. It brough up some emotions and my feet were really cold so I decided to get an additional foot reflexology treatment for 45 minutes at another place down the road. I sat in that chair having never felt more light. He really knew what he was doing was in complete focus and union. I could feel the energy shifting around my body and for a moment I felt a quiet guilt for the pleasure, like I didn't deserve everything being offered to me that day but then I realized HOW SILLY THAT IS and open my heart to the healing. There was a connection with that man and I wish I had time to hang out here and ask him to teach me everything he knows about the feet, ears and hands as maps of the body.

I'm starting to think about New Zealand as we drive to Singapore tommorow for our flight to Melbourne (for 24 hrs) then Auckland and how I need to find a job in Melbourne right away. I wrote through the day which felt relieving after my writing gap but am still struggling with how to integrate time alone into our current life without having to wakeup everyday at five am or interuppting other's plans etc.

After meeting Jenna and other independant travelers, I know traveling alone is in my future and I feel like this trip makes me confident and more sure of how i want to do it. The beauty of taking each day as it comes, allowing the days gifts to come to you in the form of bus tickets, beds and people is alluring. Observing the lone traveler makes me feel like I understand Jindalee more and her constant love of the way the present moment is what you wade in while from away from everything you already know into the gravity, pull and territory of fate.

We cross like vericose veins under the hot skin of the sky.

If you want to see my albums of Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Penang go to my picasa page:

www.picasaweb.google.com/myszkamyszka0

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